Our World Under our Command
by Summer Leigh Wind
Summary: There's a reason why Blaise Zabini's mother has "lost" so many husbands; it just takes him thirty years and a child of his own before he figures out why his mother never told him. One-Shot. Companion to We Can Begin the World all Over Again.


**_Our World Under Our Command_**

* * *

Staring at his shadowed reflection in the darkened room's long mirror, Blaise Zabini looks away to run a hand over the old purple sateen that made up his mother's bed. Taking slow and even breaths, Blaise focuses on the mirror for a second time; he can almost pretend his mother is just in the bathroom, not so far away, not separated from her favorite family heirloom. Breath hitching, he watches his reflection crumple, bringing an arm to muffle a sob, he can't stop the snippets of him and his mother that overwhelm him. He remembers watching his mother dress-up for her parties and balls and no matter the time or year, it always began the same way...

The beginning of his first memory starts with him seated on his mother's purple sateen sheets-his little bare toes twisted in the fabrics of the dresses laid out around him-as mother stands in front of her full-length mirror, naked from the waist up, her ample chest bared without embarrassment; (later, as he grew older, Blaise would learn to feel shame at the sight of the naked form and learn to avert his gaze). Scrutinizing herself, his mother sweeps back her curly tresses and makes a sad sound; turning around to face him, she laminates "Your mummy's getting old! Just look at these wrinkles!" She cries point to the finest of lines between her manicured brows and then gesturing to her pert breast she wails in great exaggeration "and my breast! They're beginning to sag!"

Too young to know truth from lie, Blaise mimics his mother's distress and does his best to comfort her. "No you're not mummy!" He declares, throwing his arms around her tiny waist and hugging her close. "Your prettier than you were yesterday!" He tells her in such an earnest fashion it causes her to shake with silent laughter.

Rubbing his head, mother remarks, "You've been sneaking down to my parties after I've put you to bed, haven't you?" Pulling away, Blaise glances up to see an unreadable look in his mother's eyes.

"Your getting a new daddy again, aren't you?" Blaise inquires, "I wanna make sure you get a good one!" He explains to her.

Her eyes gentle ever so slightly and she plucks him from the mounds of fabrics to cradle him to her warm skin. "Blaise, love, I want you to understand something;" she whispers, hushed and eyes wide as if she's about to impart to him the biggest secret ever, "what mummy does...it's all just one big game."

"Game?" Blaise frowns, head cocking to the side in confusion.

"Yes, a game of seduction, riches and tragedy," she finishes, hand tapping a steady rhythm against his back.

"Where do I come in then, mummy?" Blaise yawns against mother's soft shoulder.

He feels the smile more than he sees it. "You," she whispers, "Are the reason I play." Drifting into slumber, Blaise's chest warms and he sighs contentment; if he's why mother plays, that makes him important doesn't it? At least more important those maybe daddies. Besides, they never stick around very long anyway.

* * *

A few years later, when he's just shy of Hogwarts age, Blaise rests stretched out on his mother's bed, a book of curses propped in front of him as mother applies tints and shades of reds to her lips and cheeks. He sneaks a look up and quickly averts his eyes again when he catches her staring back at him. Smirking at his reflection, mother calls to him; "Blaise, love, come here."

"Mum," Blaise whines, "You're not decent."

She places an immaculate nail to her cheek and glares at Blaise's reflection from her mirror; "Yet, here you are."

Blaise squirms and starts "Mum-"

"Hand me the blue one," she demands; yet, as Blaise takes the silk up in his fingers, she changes her mind; "No, get me the green one." She orders and Blaise lets the silky blue run through his fingers like water before taking up the satin fabric in his hand. Slipping off the bed, he keeps his head down as he approaches his mother; holding out the gown, he waits for her to take it. Snatching it a bit roughly, she snips at him. "I hope you won't be this bashful when you are to marry!" Blaise flinches and mother sighs, they are both quiet, only the rustling of fabric heard as she dresses. When she's fixed the outfit to her expectations, she opens her arms to her son and questions, "Better?"

Blaise is quick to accept the hug, never wanting to disappoint the one constant in his life and never ever wanting to lose this little ritual him and mother share. "Sorry," he apologizes.

"No need." Mother murmurs, kissing his cheek as she straightens to her full height-only a matter of centimeters taller than Blaise-giving her attention back to her mirror, she tells him quietly "Now, when you find yourself looking for a wife always keep in mind how she does her make up..." As he listens to mother's lecture in faked entrapment, Blaise can't help but hope he never finds a wife like mother; he feels ashamed for this prayer, but he fears if he were to find a black widow, she would kill him before he could kill her.

It feels like blasphemy to question, but why does mother kill? Who broke her heart so fully that she can find no man suitable for her? For both of them? He's seen her at balls, when she thinks no one is watching her Blaise has seen where her eyes naturally fall; it's not on any single man, but on a single woman. Is it possible that...? No, if mother's attractions rested elsewhere, she wouldn't have bothered with men at all and there never would have been a Blaise; that, the boy feels is certain.

* * *

Agitated and resentful, Blaise glares down at the cream-colored carpet; purple sateen wrinkled in his fists. He can't believe his mother! The Dark Lord looming over them all and here she is throwing a ball! Not even a year after the last stepfather's "tragic" death! "Blaise" Mother implores, deep eyes staring at him through the mirror, "Would you please get the pink dress from the wardrobe? I wish to try it on."

Glaring at her, Blaise grumbles "Why don't you do it yourself?"

Mother tenses and her teeth clamp into an angry snarl. Swirling around, dressed only in a thin shift, she demands "What's gotten in to you? You certainly weren't this-this-_unruly _when I saw you off to school!"

Rushing up from the bed, Blaise stands his ground as he yells "And here I thought you were more intelligent when I left for school!"

Taken back, mother blinks large eyes at him and bringing a meticulously kept hand to her red-stained lips and she whispers, "Whatever do you mean?"

Gesturing towards the window, Blaise shouts angry and cruel "There's a war going on out there, mother!" Her eyes flash and a tremor runs through her, but Blaise doesn't stop. "And here you are! Throwing a party!"

Lip wobbling, Blaise's mother begins to tear up as she whimpers, "Is that what you think of me? My own son!"

"You're a fool to be courting! The Lord has men out there _dying _for the cause and all you want is more gold to add to your bloody accounts!" Blaise declares, pointing viciously at her with his finger.

Eyes hardening and icing over, mother refuses to tolerate him anymore. "Get out." She hisses, when Blaise doesn't move fast enough, her wand's in her hand and Blaise is being chased from the room by stinging hexes. "Don't you dare come back until you learn some respect!" She screams at him, "Until you realize how much I've done for you!" Blaise runs from his once-home, apparating away as soon as he's out the front door all the while vowing never to come back...

Not to a women who only lusted for money to fill a heart that could only be sated by the unattainable. Blaise was a boy no more and he saw what his mother truly wanted and he had begun to wish she'd finally tell him _why _she did not take it like she took everything else, _why _she instead chose to pick men like flowers, _why _none of them were every perfect, _why _he existed, _why, _if he existed, was he was not enough, _why couldn't she be happy with what she had_? However it seemed she'd never speak her secrets to him or any other living sentient. And Blaise would no longer give loyalty to a woman who only wanted to live with woe and tragedy waiting right outside their home.

* * *

Sifting through his mail, Blaise's eyes tiredly scan the letters, but stops abruptly at the sight of the swirling cursive that makes up his name on one. "Mother..." he mumbles. Dropping the rest without care, he rips into the envelope to find a formal letter inviting him to a private dinner-just him and her-but, a slow smirk creeping up on his lips, he knows it simply won't be the case. Getting up from his small-but ornate-table, Blaise yells down the hall "Dominique*! Get up! We have some shopping to do!"

He wanted to impress the woman he'd spent his life looking up to, wanted to show her he was finally more than grown-up to know what secrets she was finally willing to pass on to him and his heir.

XxXxX

"Can we just walk in like this father?" Dominique frowns questionably as the pair barge into a fine manor that Dominique has only ever dreamt of living in.

"Of course," Blaise replies, waving the around letter he's yet to let Dominique see; "We were invited."

Puffing out a breath of frustration, Blaise's heir demands, "Why didn't we knock then?"

"You'll see," father grins, a secretive glint to his eyes, walking up a grand staircase, Dominique can't help but marvel at the numerous statues and fine paintings decorating the large home. Walking down a side hall, father stops in front of a door and doesn't even knock as he slips in. Dominique hesitates, but quickly follows father's example when no horrible sounds of agony or death echo from the room. Walking in, Dominique sees father sitting crossed leg on a bed of purple sateen, eyes trained on the elegent-if not old-woman standing in front of a full-length mirror; dressed only in a robe and shift. Turning to Dominique, father beckons for his child to sit beside him.

When Dominique has fallen into place beside father, the woman's eyes focus on their reflection. "Blaise, who's child is that?"

Father smiles at the woman, then, a single hand comes to rest on Dominique's shoulder. "My heir." Tears spill from the age-dulled eyes and in slow motion she turns to them, coming to hover in front of them, she captures both father and Dominique in an unusually strong hug for one so frail in appearance.

"My child, my grandchild!" She whispers into their hairs as she presses adoring kisses to each of their cheeks.

Father's eyes are soft as he wraps his arms around the woman. "I missed you too, mother," he sighs into her gray tinged tresses.

Pulling away, face hopeful, yet uncertain, she says, "You'll stay?"

Father's eyes brighten, but nothing else gives him away as he tells her, "Dominique will start Hogwarts this year, it'll be very quiet at home now."

The woman's eyes appraise Dominique anew as she studies them closer. "Already? You're so young..."

Smirking, father explains to his mother "My wife wanted children right away, you see," grandmother chuckles and father continues, "But unfortunately, she died shortly after Dominque's birth; maybe if you were to throw a ball I could find a new mother for my child." grandmother's lips quirk up and Dominique's lost more than ever (possibly a bit horrified too).

"Father...?"

Seemingly realizing how many things he's kept hidden, father's arm wraps around Dominique's shoulder in a strong embrace as he explains "This, Dominique, is your grandmother..." Somehow, Dominique dreads the story to come, she feels like she's about to be trapped in a web she'll never escape once this night is over.

* * *

Twenty years later, Blaise Zabini lets tears stain his strong face in the quiet darkness. "Mother..." He whispers to the empty air, wishing he could have one last evening with her.

"Father? Are you in here?" Dominique calls stepping into the room, Blaise shifts his head to see his heir's mused curls (so much like _his _mother's) framing the high cheek bones that are copies of Blaise's own.

"What Dominique?" He asks tiredly.

Leaning against the doorway, Blaise notices for the first time, the infant-his grandchild-cradled in his child's arms. "You missed the burial father." Dominique tells him simply.

"I buried her in my heart, isn't that enough?" He demands viciously of Dominique.

Blaise's heir shrugs and approaches him, taking a seat beside Blaise, Dominique hands off the baby to him before laying those dark curls on his shoulder. "Won't you tell me your favorite story of her, daddy?" Dominique begs. Gazing down at the tiny slumbering face, Blaise can't help but wonder if mother did the very same in this very room when he was a baby.

Stroking a long finger down the pudgy cheek, Blaise takes a deep breath and nods. "My very first memory of her happened in this room..."

* * *

**This is actually a _very _old one-shot that I removed a long time ago (Before the We can Begin the World all Over Again series); but I found it again and felt that with a minor edit here and there that it would fit very nicely with the series! You guys will have to let me know what you think too, because unlike the others, this one is set canon and post-canon told by a Golden Trio era character and not Marauders or Pre-Marauders.**

***No connection to Dominque Weasley, I just liked the name when I picked it.**

**Thanks for reading and please review!**

**(Also, just to Madlenita if you are reading this, I'm working out your one-shot I just found this as I was looking for inspiration!)**

**If you enjoyed this, you might also like:**

_**We can Begin the World all Over Again**_

**or**

_**The Other-World Girl**_


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